Quaker Refugee Projects

The fates of refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe varied tremendously. The
examples offered here suggest important differences as well as similarities
between eight residential refugee programs sponsored by British and U.S.
American Quakers. While they indicate the sort of reception refugees from
Nazi-occupied territories met, they are limited to the case studies for
which enough material could be located to merit documenting them and are
listed according to the approximate chronology of their existence.

As of November 1929 the western world found itself in an economic sink hole
spurred by the collapse of Wall Street markets. As trade, then industry
shrunk to shadows of their pre-Crash selves, a "back to the land"
movement attracted interest in several industrialized countries. Mainly, its
adherents saw industrial civilization as precarious in its abilities to
provide long-term for humans' basic needs and well-being. The radical
philosophies of Scott and Helen Nearing in America's urban Northeast or John
Seymour in England's Midlands struck resonant chords: they preached agrarian
living as a means to achieve spiritual purity as well as material
self-reliance; the social ecology they peddled blended small-scale socialism
with radical provincialism. Theirs' was a blend of old-fashioned agrarian
common sense wedded with avant-garde revisionist
philosophy born of over a century of urban-based industrialism. For them
agriculture was a return to cultural roots as well as a march forward.

As a decentralized, non-secular school of thought, the "back to the
land" ethic lent itself to Zionist' aims of exciting European Jews to
emigrate to what was then British-ruled Palestine. Zionists saw
agrarian-based socialism as the key to establishing sustainable settlements
in the inhospitable Middle East and thereby re-establishing a long-vanished
"Israel". The human brain as well as brawn needed to sprout kibbutzim
on "Israeli" soil would have to be cultivated, as European Jews
long had been an urbane, commercial peoplenot tillers of the land. Thus
leading Jewish business and cultural figures underwrote the founding of
agricultural schools, such as the Halutz project, to prepare Jewish youth
and young adults for eventual settlement in Palestine.<1>
Meaning "pioneer" in Hebrew, Halutz
comprised the largest movement sponsoring such schools. A cross between a
Zionist hotbed and a refugee evacuation agency, it organized hundreds of
programs and touched the lives of almost ten thousand young Jews.<2>

In contrast, Quaker-sponsored agricultural projectswhile obviously
confident that agrarianism could solve problems or offer possibilities which
urban culture could notlacked the religious underpinnings of Zionist hopes
behind "making the desert bloom" as a vehicle for rebuilding
Israel. Still, that Quaker philanthropists and relief agents alike turned to
rural refugee projects suggests that they trusted the land's ability to
absorb thousands of "unwanted" persons from Nazi-held territories.
Remarkably, they and the Zionists did so virtually from the start of Nazi
rule.

Land
Settlement, Perpignan, Eastern Pyrenees, France

In response to the increasingly clear threat the newly installed Nazi
governing apparatus posed to individuals not in agreement with it, in summer
1933 the Germany Emergency Committee [GEC] of London Yearly Meetings'
Friends Service Council (a relief and reform organization) moved to create a
safe haven for the first victims of the Nationalsozialist
regime. Two members of GEC donated most of the funds necessary to realize
German and French Friends' plans to resettle German refugees in the Eastern
Pyrenees.<3>
One of the donors went in September of that year to the South of France to
investigate the possibilities available. Near Perpignan she discovered a
small derelict farm, unoccupied and available at low rent; a resettlement
project was seeded.

Soon after Hitler's Machtergreifung a
number of non-Quaker Germans had contacted Friends at the Quaker Centre in
Frankfurt-am-Main. After the procurement of property at Perpigan some of
those individuals were contacted and in November six Germansa teacher and
his wife, their small daughter and three young menmoved to Perpigan. The
teacherwhose pacifism had cost him his
jobleased the land on the group's
behalf and received grants for rent, for initial stock or equipment and for
maintenance till harvest. As the teacher had "a keen sense of service
and hoped to build a community which would play an active part in the social
life of the district", the initial settlers agreed to run their
community as a cooperative and soon won the friendship of their neighbors.
The village curι lent them furnished
accommodation while they put the farmhouse in order and helped them in other
ways; at Christmas they joined in local festivities, singing French or
German songs with locals.<4>

By the end of that first year the farmhouse became "passably
habitable" and a group of eight people moved in. As the farm included
enough pasture for some 50 goats and a few cows, and as a good market
existed for milk, butter or cheese, the group decided to run a dairy. In
also it grew fruits and vegetables for the household. Under the
schoolteacher's leadership, the settlement's residents set to work
"with great energy and determination" clearing scrub and a
neighbor plowed the fields in return for use of fodderland. The settlers
sowed seeds and planted fruit trees and bought initial livestock, including
a mule for transport. Within months the farm had improved "beyond all
knowledge"; the refugees soon realized that, after further improvement,
it might be difficult to renew the lease and they might find themselves
homeless, so in September 1934 the main donora British female
doctorpurchased the farm, in effect as a trust.

The settlement, however, was not without its troubles. The three young men
soon left, as "they were not fitted for the life there". The
activist agency L'Entr'Aide chose others to fill
their places, but had difficulty in obtaining work permits for them and
arbitrary expulsions from France being carried out by French authorities at
that time caused further loss of workers. By February 1935 the schoolteacher
was the only man on the farm; during that month an epidemic among the goats
killed all the kids. In March another refugee arrived and later that year
two parties of English schoolboys came to work brieflyin the summer months,
though, the farm really needed four men to get through all the work. Despite
personnel problems, in autumn 1935 the farm was able to feed the four people
living there-until, that is, during the winter the wholesale price of milk
fell sharply and "further subsidization" was necessary. The
following autumn doubt arose whether the settlement could be
self-supporting, so the core group made a "radical change",
converted the mixed farm into a fruit farm occupied by the schoolteachers'
family and planted 500 new fruit trees. Situated amidst "lovely
country", they also made a modest income by accommodating visitors and
providing camping sites; that enterprise was developed along with the
fruit-growing: "Soon the prospects began to look brighter".<5>

Until, that is, war erupted. At that point the family undertook housing and
teaching refugee children sent to them by French and American Quakers, a
task in which they were "well qualified and...very successful".<6>
While the settlement succeeded in cultivating amiable relations with its
neighbors, the degree to which the refugees who lived there were able to
integrate into the local milieu, however, depended on external forces. After
war broke out in Europe, agriculturally based refugee projects in general
assumed new, complicated characteristics.

Holwell Hyde

Disproportionately involved in the German refugee crisis, British Quakers
sought to relieve as well as rehabilitate those coming to them for
assistance. Of primary need was shelterbefore any effort could be made of
helping exiles from the Continent plant new lives on British soil. Toward
that end Friends founded numerous small refugee centers. Most were temporary
and limited in scope; the three substantial ones included here represent
British Friends' efforts at running residential refugee programs. The first,
Holwell Hyde near Hatfield, consisted of an 11-acre farm with a house, a
cottage and a separate recreation facility operated by the Friends Committee
for Refugees and Aliens [FCRAformerly known as the German Emergency
Committee]. Its primary goal was to provide individuals fleeing broken lives
on the Continent with the means of supporting themselves in Britain. Given
language as well as professional barriers to establishing careers in wartime
Britain, Friends pinned their hopes as well as the refugees' futures on
agricultural employment.

Before war broke out, Franciscans had used the site to house vagrants, who
had worked on the farm. Under war-time conditions, however, "these
people had ceased to exist as a class".<7>
In March 1940 FCRA assumed control of the site's implements, fodder and a
modest assembly of livestock. It also kept the previous wardens to run the
place as an agricultural training center for about 20 persons. Holwell Hyde
lent itself to such a use, as it already was under cultivation and in
neighboring towns existed a "good market" for fresh vegetables and
flowers. Thus, under the eye of three "older and experienced"
refugees, Friends offered trainees training in agriculture, horticulture,
stock- and poultry-keeping, and periodically organized lectures on those
subjects. The combined influences of safe haven and wholesome work, sound
training and agreeable camaraderie made an immediate difference and it soon
became noticeable that "without exception" the trainees
"greatly improved in health and physique during their stay... All
[were] keen on learning English" and several joined English or French
classes. Four conversation and reading groups were held each week by a
volunteer who also gave separate lessons to three "backward
members" of the community. The conversations often took the form of a
discussion "on some subject of interest".

Just three months after the hostel's opening many of the men there were
interned due to fear of "enemy aliens", but the project was saved
by the "excellent work" of the wardens, one of the leading
refugees and "Brother Andrew"the tractor. Allegedly the center
became "a haven", as the police and the War Agricultural Committee

simply
wouldn't let it be closed [as the specified refugee] was, among other
things, a skilled tractor driver [so] he and his wife were spared from
internment, and under the wardens he took charge of the agricultural
training. 'Brother Andrew'...not only made it possible for the refugees to
receive mechanical training,

but enabled
"everything to be very well advanced" when authorities inspected
the center during the "critical" months of May and June 1940.

Staff compensated for the depleted number of residents by introducing young
refugees who escaped internment. Despite the lack of experienced help a
"high standard" was apparently maintained, for a year later a
visitor noted that both the chairman of the War Agricultural Committee and a
Ministry of Agriculture inspector recently visited the farm and
"congratulated the Management on the forward condition of their work
and the quality of their stored crops. The Government is purchasing the
residue of the potato crop... [Generally] the refugees were happy and were
benefiting from the training".

Despite the refugees' positive reception of the program at Holwell Hyde, by
1941 it had only about ten trainees and in early 1942 it closed as a
program. Most of its residents were able to find positions in agriculture.
It had met the needs of adult refugeesbut what of those of children who
also had fled Nazi terror? Altogether different institutions offered them
refuge in a world grown dangerous and often unhospitable.

Although between 1933 and 1939 about 60,000 Jews entered Great Britainwhich some at the time deemed "very generous"at first it
received "only a modest part" of the total number of would-be
German refugees from the Third Reich due to restrictions on immigration even
to those fleeing persecution: only those who brought "the means of
supporting themselves" could enter.<8>
From 1933 to 1938 less than ten thousand exiles were admitted. Following the
Kristallnacht pogrom, however, the British
people were deeply moved, and renewed the tradition of asylum for the
persecuted". From November 1938 till the outbreak of the war in
September 1939 the total number of refugees which Britain admitted
approached 60,000. Of those, more than three-quarters were Jews and ten
thousand were children unaccompanied by parents.

Leaders of the Anglo-Jewish community promised the government that they
would incur much of the expense of assisting fleeing Continental Jews. The
academic-sponsored Assistance Council helped find positions for scholars at
British universities and private citizens such as Harold Macmillan or Lord
Baldwin provided shelter to numerous refugees at their estates. Quakers in
England responded to appeals from German Jews by sending representatives to
Germany to organize the removal of children to safety in the U.K., as it
would have been too dangerous for British Jews to have gone. The subsequent
Movement for the Care of Children from Germany arranged for the rushed
emigration of ten thousand children. While teenage children could go abroad
unaccompanied, the younger ones were chaperoned on Kindertransporte.<9>
Quakers often hosted children when they arrivedand later adopted some of
the orphaned ones; children not placed with private families were entrusted
to the care of other sponsors, "farmed out" to agricultural
schools or housed in boarding schoolsincluding the likes of the New
Herrlingen School at Bunce Court, located in the south of England.

Bunce Court

Upon finishing a German education, Anna Essinger of Ulm went to America,
became a qualified teacher and lectured at Madison's University of
Wisconsin, where she also ran a student hostel. After the first world war
she returned to Germany with a Quaker-sponsored Kinderspeisung
program and opened Sozialen-Frauenschulencommunity-focused
schools for womennear Stuttgart. In 1911 her sister and her
general-practitioner brother-in-law had established a children's hostel in
Herrlingen, a Swabian village near Ulm; wishing to found a boarding school
for those children, Essinger joined them. With the help of two other
sisters, she opened the school in 1926 with 18 pupils. In 1927 an Education
Ministry report described her as "extremely competent" and said
she taught in a "very skillful, fresh and stimulating way, exploiting
the material with a dedicated precision linked with resolute practice".<10>
Essinger's progressive school thrived until 1933.

A Jew, Essinger received notice after Hitler's ascendancy to power that her
first pupilswho were then the age for
itwould not be allowed to sit the Abitur
exam, the German state school-leaving examination. Furthermore, for
the Fόhrer's birthday in April 1933 it was
announced that the Nazi swastika was to be flown over all schools: Essinger
obeyed the order but sent the children on a day-long outing. A nephew later
recalled: "A flag flying over an empty building could signify so much,
and that is what my aunt intended".<11>

Recognizing that her school had no future in the New Germany, in summer 1933
Essingerthen
54took 13 of her pupils to England and re-opened the school
in Bunce Court, a country estate at Otterden in Kent. Having been denied a
chance at the Abitur in their own
country, the pupils sat the London Matriculation and nine passedthree with
distinction! With help from two sisters, Essinger proceeded to develop a
school which closely reflected her dynamic personality. According to one
Kent historian, Anna Essinger was

the-then-English
idea of a typical German headmistress, short, stout, with very thick
spectacles, a brisk and efficient manner, 'homely' [in the British sense of
the word] and very kind to the children, but a strict disciplinarian to
teaching staff and pupils.<12>

Autumn 1933 found another 65 pupils and their teachers fleeing Nazi Germany
via three separate routes so to avoid official notice. Along with these new
arrivals came much work. Part of the school's curriculum was practical work
and in the following two months pupils had plenty of that, as they had to
work in the house and garden.<13>
A Committee of Friends organized to assist the school and erected a big
wooden dormitory in the grounds for twenty senior boys. Even so, the
children suffered from crowded living conditions that first winter. Some
contracted diphtheria or scarlet fever; one boy died in November from polio,
causing further anxiety in following months whether others might develop it,
so Bunce Court was put into isolation for weeks. Provisions were left at the
gates and short meetings with parents were restricted to the open air.<14>

Although at first rough, conditions at the school eventually improved and a
state of normality took shape. As the situation in Germany deteriorated, the
school increasingly became home to Jewish youth sent abroad by worried
parents; the children's unsettled lives and Essinger's progressive pedagogy
created an atmosphere of community-based scholasticism.<15>
Still, even in such a self-contained, thriving environment, events beyond
the garden gate impacted everyday life, as the school body included Jewish
refugee children first from Germany, then annexed Austria and occupied
Czechoslovakia, followed by children from Poland and Hungry. As a group,
they lived in "new-found security as 'citizens of the United Europe of
the future'". Some were

almost
ill with homesickness and the older children anxious for parents, brothers
and sisters left in Germany. A Quaker worker told...of parents' agony of
mind who could only choose one of several children to go to England for safe
education and which to selectthe most brilliant, most fit, or one most
vulnerable and unlikely to survive?<16>

In Kristallnacht's wake Essinger helped Jewish
families leave Nazi Germany. She had two new dormitories built at Bunce
Court and even billeted children with local families. Eventually the need
became to be so great that she and the staff barely could respond to it, for
as conditions worsened in Germany and the number of refugee children
swelled, demand on the school's resources grew. The school's council advised
against taking children without definite financial arrangements, though the
school "always had up to a dozen children" without them. Many
children were taken "on good faith", in the hope that parents
would pay when they could or themselves escaped. Another problem involved
locating British teachers able to deal with emotional needs

of
Jewish children taken from parents, homes and native country. At that
time... Britain was still a peaceful, secure country and few realized what
was really happening in Germany and were thus unable to comprehend why Anna
[brought the] children out of Nazi Germany.<17>

Sometimes, though, "problems" at the school consisted not of spatial
or health or psychological limitationsbut lingual ones. The official
language at the school had to be English in deference to the children's
futures, but German remained the de facto lingua francaa
state which caused struggles as well as smiles. In an attempt to enforce the
use of English, new British teachers were told they must not learn any
German for a yearbut they usually did, as the unofficial language of the
school was still German for a considerable time. One of the teachers,
however, devised a way of reminding the children of the rule of only English
at meal times by hanging a miniature Union Jack over the dining-room mantel;
at the sound of a German word the teacher pressed a button connected to a
light bulb, which illuminated the flag and buzzed a bell. Another daily
event that also took place at meal times was a brief "touching of
hands" around the table. This was intended to unite the whole body of
the school for a short time before meals"a sort of silent,
non-religious grace-before-meals". Furthermore, there was no school
uniform, as anything which reminded staff or pupils of "uniformed Nazi
Germany was anathema".<18>

Indeed, at least for them personally, Nazi Germany was behind the young
exilesnecessitating them to adapt to a new country and culture. To that end
Essinger emphasized participation in groups with foci beyond the front lawn.
The school welcomed guest speakers from the League of Nations Unionfor
exampleand from the Workers' Education Association. From the latter came a
local mail carrier one cold, rainy night to "face what seemed an
endless sea of children's faces". Describing himself as a "bundle
of nerves", he "was nearly overcome with stage fright", but
managed to get through his "party piece".<19>
On a larger scale, as soon as the school had become firmly established its
contacts with the local community increased and "its fame spread
further afield". The staff decided in summer 1934 to hold an Open Day
in the last week of July. During it the children performed the Aristophanes
play "Peace"with the stately manor house as
backgroundand made
all of the costumes and props. Some 250 visitors came to see the school and
the playamong them Lord Samuel, who in a address welcomed the children to
England. Due to this exposure children were invited to stay with host
families for holidays. Open Days were held every year up to and after the
war.<20>

The war, however, would disturb more than merely the amicable Open Day. As
of September 1939 the owner of the estate fretted how the war might mean the
appropriation of Bunce Court and end her income from it, so the Committee of
Friends organized for Essinger to purchase the property from her. Then, the
following May, with the advance of the Wehrmacht
into France all German male staff and pupils over 16 landed in
"enemy-alien" internment campssoon followed by the school's cook
and girls over 16.<21>
In June 1940 military authorities issued the school three days' notice to
leave the premises, as it had been declared a Defence Area: the army had
requisitioned Bunce Court. After intense pleas the government reconsideredgranting a week's notice to move an entire school! Not
surprisingly, a suitable replacement could not be found, so the school body
splitwith the smaller part joining another school and the larger part
moving to empty Trench Hall in Shropshire, where the school stayed until the
war's end. After "much effort" the school re-opened at Bunce Court
in June 1946. Immediately after the war it accepted a number of children and
young people who had been prisoners in Nazi concentration camps or had
similar wartime backgrounds. This, among the

underlying
and unavoidable fact that eventually there would be no more Continental
children coming from Europe... Possibly it was at this stage that Anna
Essinger felt the original purpose of the school in England was no longer
relevant; another may have been that [at almost 70] she was now elderly and
considered her work done.<22>

Bunce Court school closed in 1948having served some 900 pupils. Indeed a
unique place, it belonged to a specific time. It's rich legacy, however,
survived in the form of Continental children assimilated into
"British" adults who made important contributions to their adopted
homeland. Not only Bunch Courtians, however, went on to lead lives marked by
achievement.

Falkenstein

In November 1933 British Friends opened an Erholungsheim
which they deemed a Rest Homea "friendly little hotel" in
Falkenstein-im-Taunus for individuals who "in the passage of the years
already had suffered somehow spiritually or physically from the actions of
the Nazi Terror".<23>
Persons who found respite there came through personal recommendations
independent from "political attitudes or worldviews" and included
"non-Aryans" as well as Catholics, Lutherans and "people of
all the Left Wing Political parties"<24>among them Ernst Reuter, a future Berlin Regierende Bόrgermeister.
The "guests"a term in use not only at Scattergood Hostel six
years later, but already at the Rest Homeshared meals, attended
silence-based Meetings for Worship and spent much time
"recuperating". Per the home's modus operandi, it was paramount
that the persecuted gained "distance from their often really horrible
past experiences". In one-to-one conversations staff attempted to find
"a new possibility of existencephysically and
spiritually instead of
resigning to desperation and lack of courage".<25>

Elizabeth Howard of England had visited Germany numerous times since the
first world war as a relief worker and after the Nazis took power she served
at various times as the Rest Home's House Mother. She described the
restorative effect of such quiet time as found there by the guests, who
arrived in "a weary, nervous condition", not knowing what they
would find among

unknown
friends who had invited them out of the blue... but a few days of rest,
sleep and freedom from immediate anxiety, and the discovery that there were
people who respected them and only wished them well, worked wonders. Colour
began to come back to their faces, light into their eyes, and strange
miracles of healing happened.<26>

Already within nine months of Hitler's Machtergreifung,
the need for refuge and renewal was pronounced. During Howard's visit
several guests who had fallen "under Government displeasure" or
been in prisons or concentration camps appeared at the Rest Home. As she
related, it was only when they were

safely
shut into our private sitting-room at night or, better still, were wandering
in the woods or climbing those magically lovely hills, that it seemed safe
to listen to the stories of their experiences...[Also] there were glorious
woods close by, where we could walk for hours and get right away from
people. Many a tragic story could be told in safety while tramping through
the forest, with the certainty that no unfriendly ears were within reach.<27>

Howard's last point was pertinent, given that the Quakers had informed local
officials about the institution to avoid "unwished seizures".
Despite proactive measures, though, when guests wanted to return home they
had to undergo interrogation by the Gestapo, who were "keenly
interested" to know with whom they had been in the Rest Home.<28>
The Gestapo wasn't the only Nazi organ interested in the Frankfurter Hof's
guests, as during the first weeks of the Rest Home's existence the
suspicions of the local branch of the Frauenschafta
Nazi women's organizationwere "aroused" and the home's first
hostess was invited to one of their meetings to explain what she was doing
at Falkenstein. She was introduced by the hotel-keeper's daughter, who spoke
on

the
virtues and good deeds of the Quakers. I simply replied that we had known
for many years of the hardships endured by many German friends, and when the
Quakers in England asked, 'Who will go out and help them?' I said, 'I will,
and I will come here, because this is the most beautiful village in this,
the most beautiful mountain district in Germany'. And with that, I smiled
round the assembled company and sat down.

Staying for a couple weeks at a time in an atmosphere of "peace and
freedom from danger", guests came exactly because of the lack of either
"out in the world". Howard told of a dismissed
"free-thinking" Jewish judge who had been "on the verge of
taking his own life in despair" when an invitation to visit the Rest
Home reached him. As he left he said tearfully: "I have regained my
self-respect and courage here!", then returned home to face his
difficulties. A similar case involved a "non-Aryan Christian"
pediatrician who had held "an important post in the city" and had
treated "over eighteen thousand cases". His statistics having been
confiscated, he was "eating out his heart in inactivity". In
addition to "racial suffers", the Rest Home also hosted persons
"penalised for their political views". One, a Cologne social worker,

had
been dismissed from her office by telephone, but told that she must continue
to go there for three weeks, to initiate her successor, the mistress of a
local Nazi leader, into her work. It was almost more than [the social
worker] could bear to see her beloved work going to pieces in the hands of
an incompetent woman of doubtful character.

The wife of the social worker's brother,
"a dreamy idealist who was in
prison as a Communist",
also

came. Upon her arrival, to Howard she looked "a mere child", but
left at the end of her visit

full
of renewed health, and of joy at the prospect of a rare visit to her
[husband in] prison. But on the very day she was starting, a letter came to
tell her that [he] had been moved to a concentration camp, and that there
was no prospect of her being allowed to visit him there. [Howard] found her
in floods of tears. Then a happy thought struck me, and I persuaded her to
smile, as I took a photograph which she could send to him in her next
letter. After some months [her husband] was released, and they came together
for him to convalesce at the Rest Home.<30>

The Rest Home later moved to St. Josefs-Haus Bad
Pyrmont,<31>
where American Catholic nuns who "understood why guests needed complete
privacy for their recovery" supported the Quakers' objectives. As
Americans, they also were under less pressure to comply with anti-Semitic
laws.<32>
A focal point of German Quakerdom, Quakers and their guests visiting Bad
Pyrmont frequently joined in weekly Meeting for Worship at the Rest Home
while it was housed in that spa town during the spring and autumn months
until 1939-at which time it closed because the war severed British Quakers'
connection with German friends and "one had even then the feeling that
events were moving towards catastrophe".<33>
Although the outbreak of armed conflict overturned Friends' hopes to
continue the Rest Home's operation, during the six years it existed it had
offered recuperation to some 800 people<34>
and touched the lives of "hundred of others" who never had the
chance to share "the hospitality of English Friends in this way [but
who] were thankful to know of the existence of this 'island far away'".<35>
While the Rest Home focused on rehabilitation and not
integration/assimilation, it did provide refugees who wished to emigrate
with the physical as well as psychological strength necessary to proceed
with both means of adaptation upon leaving the Rest Home's protective door.

Battle and
Lavendercroft

After its agricultural project at Holwell Hyde ceased operation largely due
to disturbances caused by the outbreak of armed conflict, the London-based
Friends Committee for Refugees and Aliens changed its focus, as the needs of
refugees appealing to it had changed. In the first wave of centers operated
by British Friends the point of the training had been to prepare
transmigrants for the type of occupation at which they most readily could
earn a living in other countries. The war, however, not only made the
prospects of emigration more remote, it created the possibilitywhich for
refugees had not before existedof immediate engagement in agriculture, the
Auxiliary Military Pioneer Corps or government training schemes for various
forms of industrial work. In 1939 FCRA had created ten residential refugee
centers for trainees and one for old or infirm refugees. By September 1941,
however, it decided that the greatest need for accommodation existed on the
part of the old and infirm; by then there was only a moderate need for
training centers. Three of the four centers FCRA subsequently opened were
intended for the elderly and the fourth oneoddly, called
"Battle"for mothers and children.

Battle, which consisted of a house with grounds of four and a half acres in
Sussex, first had been used by British Quakers as a horticultural training
center. With the change of services offered by FCRA and after enduring the
"usual internment troubles in 1940", it gained new life as a home
for girls who were trained in domestic work as well as gardening. By the end
of 1941, though, "so many forms of employment were open to young
refugee girls" that Battle could not be filled, so it was decided to
accept no new trainees. At that point ten childrena few with mothers,
"the rest unaccompanied"came to the hostel. As the mothers
gradually found other accommodations, more children were added until a peak
of 18 was achieved. The children ranged in age from two to 14 years and
several of them were "by no means easy to manage, having very disturbed
backgrounds"; the mothers of three of them were in mental homes. Such
as the casefor
examplewith two sisters, Stella and Liselotte. Stella was
six years old and Liselotte three when they came to Battle. Their Jewish
father had landed in a concentration camp in Czechoslovakia. Their unwedded
mother had arranged to come to England before Liselotte was born, but the
baby arrived prematurely, so the woman had to postpone her departure; she
reached Britain only five or six days before war broke out. She and her
children initially were supported by a regional refugee organization.
Despite having found assistance, she began to suffer severe depression,
accompanied by ideas of persecution and suicide. In 1942 she entered a
mental institution, where she died a year later while Stella and Liselotte
were at Battle. Liselotte had spent many months in hospital, and both
children were rather frail and needed special care. After they had been at
Battle for two and half years a foster mother assumed care for them.

Although at the other end of life, elderly refugees from Nazi-occupied
Europe often fared scarcely better than helpless childrendespite
professional or other achievements they might have enjoyed in the prime of
their previous lives on the Continent. FCRA's residential care of elderly
refugees actually began in spring 1939, when it opened a large, furnished
house in Paddington. At that time Quaker relief workers thought it
convenient to have a central location, which about 40 refugees soon
occupied. When the Nazi government began bombing the British capital in
September 1940, however, Friends found it "urgently necessary" to
find safer facilities for the elderly and infirm who had been living in FCRA-sponsored
accommodations. Such individuals found their way to Lavender Croft near
Hitchin.

Previously, Lavender Croft had housed refugee families whose males were
employed locally and who sought accommodation in the neighborhood. Although
for a short time the two groups overlapped, the last family soon left.
Thereafter the center was run exclusively for elderly refugees who,
according to a Quaker report, encountered severe difficulties in coping with
the new conditions of their lives:

Uprooted
from their homeland late in life, these men and women found it very much
harder than did younger refugees to adapt themselves to new ways and to pick
up a new language. Though some had relatives in [Britain] who visited them
from time to time, for others the reason for their being at Lavender Croft
was that they had none. They had, therefore, little to look forward to and
little incentive to take an interest in what was going on around them in
England. It [was] not surprising that at times the group should turn in on
itself, live in the past and make much of minor inconveniences.

The staff felt surprised, however, that its charges did not do so more often
and that such a large proportion of them were exceptions to what might be
expected to have been the rule. Some of the refugees remained interested in
"outside happenings", while a few of the able ones found work in
the neighborhood and became self-supporting through part-time employment.

How or the degree to which elderly refugees adjusted to the changes forced
upon them or adapted to their new environments depended very much on the
individual's specific character-as well as chance. A professional
violinist-for one-had previously lived as the guest "of a lady of most
exalted title". Later, however, the woman made it "abundantly
clear" that she did not appreciate his playing his violin and,
generally, relations had become strained

beyond
endurance. At Lavender Croft [the man] found to his joy that his playing was
not only tolerated but even occasionally welcomed; and when presently he was
introduced to some English people in a neighbouring town who had similar
interests, and was invited to join their ensemble, he took on a new lease of
life.

Although Lavender Croft did not accept refugees in need of nursing, many
guests were semi-invalid. Most of them were highly educated people
"used to living in comfort and accustomed to the luxury of
privacy". Some found it "irksome" having to share
sleeping-quarters, sowhen numbers
permitteda small room was reserved as a
private bedroom for use by each of the residents in turn. Wardens did not
find running such a household easy, for it required a "rare mixture of
tact and firmness". They cultivated contact with people outside
Lavender Croft-"both by encouraging the guests...to meet people...and
by inviting Friends and others to visit...and sometimes give talks".

The number of resident guests averaged a dozen permanent guests and a half a
dozen other elderly refugees as temporary guests. During summer months,
though, younger refugees sometimes were invited to spend short holidays at
Lavender Croft; in summer 1944 the number of people in the house rose to 34
as a result of refugees from London on short holiday "in need of a week
or so's respite from flying bombs". Friends found that the visits
helped keep the usual residents in touch with other people and with outside
ideas. Visits from children provided a "special pleasure".

Toward the war's end the number of long-term residents at Lavender Croft
declined sharply, with some of the former residents having found residence
in nursing homes or "other solutions to their problems". Of those
left, "most...had already been living together for too long. Other
arrangements were therefore made for each of them". In any case, while
the children at Battle presumably were young enough to truly "begin
again" and assimilate fully into British society, only some of the
elderly at Lavender Croft succeeded in integrating into a society which was
not their own and perhaps not even their choice. Above all, adult refugees
had to accept that imperial England was no immigration country; their status
there would remain one of a foreigner, with little chance of ever being
accepted as "British".

Aberdeen Camp

In contrast, the reception afforded refugees from Nazi-occupied Europe in
America was markedly different than in Britain. The arrangements made by
Quakers for refugees in the quintessential "immigration country"
were correspondingly different from those made by British Friends. Above
all, New World Quakers sought from the beginning to "Americanize"
the "newcomers", while Friends in England are not recorded as
having attempted to Anglicize their charges. Expression of the assumption
that the best way to help those seeking assistance was to remake the
Europeans into "New Americans" can be found in the first refugee
project which American Friends Service Committee [AFSC] of Philadelphia
initiated. Indeed, the very first sentence of a promotion letter written to
attract "guests" to Aberdeen Camp in summer 1938 promised refugees
that they would find

a
haven for rest and recreation and an opportunity to study American ways...at
Aberdeen, a large property on the Hudson River which has been available to [AFSC].
Here cultured newcomers from abroad and Americans may live togetherdoctors,
layers, teachers, writers, musicians and artists.<36>

Quakers
intended the project to benefit especially Austrians and Germans "of
limited means, who need a congenial home while seeking to establish
themselves permanently in the United States".

Perhaps seeking to encourage self-reliance from the start, the letter
emphasized that "in no sense is Aberdeen a 'charity' institution".
Both foreign and American residents were to pay "a dollar-a-day"
toward the expenses. A press release issued about a week later further
explained that 35 to 40 persons would live at the camp, including about a
dozen Americans drawn from schools and colleges throughout the East and
Midwest. Organizers planned Aberdeen Camp as "an experiment in
international living and cooperative learning that will be mutually helpful
to everyone taking part in it".<37>

Located some 75 miles north of Manhattan on a 50-acre tract opposite the
"summer White House" at Hyde Park, the Aberdeen estate consisted
of a large mansion, a dock house and a barnall "fully equipped and
furnished for school purposes"an extensive library and a workshop.<38>
In such a setting, the camp's sponsors held that life at Aberdeen was not
intended to be formal and routine. As a cooperative project residents were
meant to share household duties and live "in democratic freedom".
At the same time, AFSC provided organized activities of two general types.
For one, it offered instruction in languages, literature, American civics
and government, as well as in "allied economic and social
problems". For another, AFSC strove for a work-balanced-with-recreation
program consisting of

swimming,
tennis and hiking to caring for the garden which will be one of the
principle sources of food. [AFSC] enlisted the interest of local Quaker
groups [which] ploughed the land and planted an extensive garden which
should produce a generous harvest of vegetables.<39>

Scheduled to
open on 20 June and run until 15 September 1938, Aberdeen Camp was believed
to be "the first such venture" in the U.S. designed to meet the
problem of "first adjustment and rehabilitation of refugees".<40>
As such it attracted "interested cooperation" and the
contributions of several persons or groups-including the proceeds from a
concert given by Jascha Heifetz for the benefit of Austrian refugees.

Plans might sound fine and good, but actual results? In his report on the
program written in late August 1938, the camp's director held that the
"spirit" of the campcharacterized by "harmony amid
variety"was the result of several causes. For one, AFSC was "wise
and fortunate" in its selection of staff. The site placed at its
disposal"with its beautiful setting on the Hudson"also provided
opportunities for "wholesome outdoor life" interspersed with
periods of garden and grounds work. English classes and instruction in
aspects of American life afforded mental stimulus and were supplemented by
occasional evening or weekend discussions led by staff or visitors on
"entertaining or educational" topics. Daily periods of sport or
play added "buoyancy of spirit".<41>

As far as the 48 refugee participants themselves, the number of men and
women were "almost equal", while the ages of the refugees ranged
from eights years to 65, with a dozen of them being under 20. One-third to a
quarter of the group's members were Americans, nine were Austrians and the
rest Germans. Although a few were Roman Catholic or Protestant, most were
Jews. The adult refugees were all "well educated" and the young
people had been receiving "a good education" before their exile.
Several of the men were physicians, some were lawyers, two were rabbis, one
was a banker. Variety in age, religious affiliation, professional or
business training, in "abundance of material possessions in the past
and to some extent in the present, in past experience and in future
outlook" characterized the group.<42>
"Harmony" was a "marked characteristic" of their life
together.<43>

Perhaps the "characteristic harmony" reflected the refugees'
acceptance and practice of Quaker silence. Reports suggest that shared
stillness wove together program activities with refugees' need to integrate
their recent experiences. At least the director thought the meetings for
worshipheld briefly each weekday morning, longer on
Sundaysproved to be
"a valuable and valued element of our camp life". One
"beautiful Sunday morning" the group drove to a nearby mountain
stream, made breakfast over a fire and then shared a meeting for worship in
which there was "centering down" and a

worshipful
spirit felt by all, with a general regret...that the hour was so soon
over... Our non-Quaker members...readily adopted and appreciated
the...meetings for worship irrespective of previous practice and experience.
While there has not been any tendency to too much vocal expression, a
freedom in speaking has been felt...by all, and used by a considerable
number of both Americans and Newcomers. The latter have understood that they
should feel at liberty to express themselves in their native tongue if they
desired to do so as at first they did, but there has been an increasing
tendency to speak in English even when dealing with matters so intimate as
the ideas and emotions of religion.<44>

As "successful" as it might or not have been, the well-received
summer camp at Aberdeen lacked the time, resources or long-term planning
necessary to tackle more directly the task of refugee integration or
assimilation. Toward those ends Quakers in the United States established
larger, on-going hostelstwo of which resembled the prototype Scattergood
Hostel upon which they were modeled, yet involved significantly different
organizational components or goals. All Quaker hostels, however, (and the
AFSC originally envisioned Scattergood to be the first of some two dozen
across the United Statesof
which only two were established) shared the
ultimate goal of helping newly arrived European refugees integrate or
assimilate with the cultures in the lands of their ultimate destinations.

Finca Paso
Seco

A rare blend of "ideas and emotions", Aberdeen Camp did offer
refugees a crash-course on becoming "New Americans". But what of
those who had not yet been able to reach America's shores? The Quakers
sought to help such individuals as well. At the time one of the best ways to
do so was from Cuba, where exiled Europeans could wait untilor, in the
event thatthe U.S. State Department granted the coveted visas necessary to
enter the country.<45>
To house and meet other basic needs of such castaways, AFSC established
Finca Paso Seco near Havana. AFSC volunteer Emmett Gulley of Newberg, New
Yorkwho must have seemed a spectacle to the Cubans, given that he stood
almost two and a quarter meters!drove with his family via the World's Fair
in New York City to Miami in July 1939, then flew to Cuba to serve as
director of the project. As he later wrote, the founding of Finca Paso Seco
was possible because Cuba had "opened her doors" to exiled
Europeans, but on the condition that each post $500 bond to guarantee that
she or he would not become a public charge. Those fleeing arbitrary Nazi
tyranny then had to sign an agreement

that
they were entering as tourists and would not accept pay for work. Since the
refugees were desperate for any place to land, they had to agree. This left
them in a terrible condition [with] no money and no way of earning money.<46>

As Gulleya former Quaker relief agent who had fed the needy in civil
war-torn Spaindiscovered, most of the refugees previously had applied to
enter the United States based on national quotas permitted under U.S.
immigration laws. Thus, Cuba became a tropical waiting station while the
refugees waited "for their numbers to be called".<47>

To house them, AFSC rented a farm which had a house with 27 rooms and five
bathrooms. With this as a center, American Quakers operating the place began
assisting "as many refugees as possible", which proved to be about
60 people at a timemostly men for, as Gulley saw it, in a time when work
for pay was forbidden, men had the "greatest problem". In their
case, they could not occupy their time, so would

congregate
in groups on the streets of Havana and talk about the trouble they were
having, what they had passed through and express apprehension about the
future. On the other hand, the women could keep busy about the house,
[tending to] handwork and caring for their dependents. The strain on them
was minimal compared to the men.<48>

AFSC had very specific refugees in mind in creating Finca Paso Seco, as it
saw the project as the center of a diversified service and training program
which emphasized training younger refugees to meet the needs of their new
lives in foreign countries. The center also served the purpose of a transit
camp and provided a basis for the "orderly immigration" of young
men and women who were neither children nor adults ready or eligible for
independent immigration. AFSC hoped to offer the first group the
"advantage" of

assisting
in the preparation of temporary buildings for dormitories and workshops and
participating in their equipment with new home-made and reconditioned
second-hand furniture, affording plenty of opportunities for trade training
as well as service.<49>

AFSC provided
later groups with as much work of this kind as available and both groups
received the more common training in connection with farming or techniques
which "might enable them to establish themselves in industry and
possibly to introduce new industries into their country of final
settlement".

As it did with all of its refugee centers, AFSC sought to run Finca Paso
Seco cooperatively and to provide a comprehensive array of services. The
staff offered English and Spanish lessons, as well as instruction in
"wood turning", carpentry and machinery. The resident refugees
also helped in the garden and kitchen, washroom and office. Manual labor,
though, seemed to be something new for them, as most of the refugees were
"were people of wealth and position in their own countries": as
Gulley noted, they included bankers, lawyers and judges, businesspeople,
teachers, musicians and others from

nearly
all of the white collar walks of life. It was a great trial for many of them
to have to work with their hands on [the] farm. [Also] the idea of democracy
was bewildering. When I went out and worked with them, I lost face. I was no
'leader' they said. Their idea of leadership meant sitting behind a desk and
giving orders but never getting [your] own hands dirty.

Still, the Quaker staff tried to run the hostel according to democratic
principles so that the refugees might "begin to learn to participate"
rather than be dictated to. Curiously, the refugees voted to rise

in
the wee hours of the morning! All of activities were decided by discussion
and vote. It took nearly three months for them to really begin to appreciate
the democratic idea of participating in [decision-making]. When they
understood the meaning of demo-

Common life at Finca Paso Seco did not consist, however, only of work: the
community also shared free time activities as a group. An article in the Jόdische
Rundschau, for example, indicated the atmosphere of the place.
Its author related:

It
was already dark and only by the outlines of the trees and palms could we
notice that we were outside of Habana in the open country... Soon we saw
from a great distance the brightly lighted castle-like building, and as we
entered the yard by the large gate we were at once surrounded and greeted
heartily by cheerful people. On our questions, asking about the state of
their health and general feeling, the answers came almost in a chorus: 'Very
wellexcellentI am happy to be
hereI did not think it to be so nice.' The
looking and the faces of those people confirmed their words.

The
performances were carried out by the very excellent pianist Mr. Franz Rotter<51>
and by [two accompanying] violinists. A small but well-instructed chorus as
well as piano pieces...completed the program...given with love and
eagerness... After a short pause the great surprise of the evening came. The
guests in their turn gave performances, the artistic level of which would
have given honour to any public concert... The audience thanked with stormy
applause. The music evening on the Finca was an adventure, which will have a
thankful and pleasant memory. We would have liked to remain in the circle
but the necessity for rest for the Finca-people, who have to get up very
early for work, as well as the leave of the last train to Havana caused our
departure. We felt the sincerity of the farewell 'auf
baldiges Widersehen' and equally sincere was in us the wish to be
as soon as possible in this circle again.<52>

Not only guests at the farm but other outsiders also played a major role in
Finca Paso Seco's daily life. Cuban officials, for example, soon proved to
be "suspicious".<53>
The center also had visits from armed police, Department of Justice
representatives, Army and Navy Intelligence agents and others. Each time, a
"quiet talk" and the offer to show them "everything"
resulted in

dispersing
their fears. The refugees themselves were jittery and fearful. They were all
fleeing from a dreadful persecution in Germany and Central Europe. Few had
any money to speak of and nearly all of them had relatives who had been left
behind. We were entreated to help them. Some of the pitiful cases, we
tackled.<54>

In one case, a young couple had married only a week before the man sailed to
Cuba, leaving the woman in the Netherlands. He expected to find a way to
send for her but before he could Cuba "closed its doors to all European
refugees". The Quaker staff at Finca Paso Seco found a government
official "with a heart" and upon his advice the woman sailed to
Panama, from where she was allowed to enter Cuba and the couple was
re-united. Millions of other refugees, however, were not so lucky. The most
fortunate of them managed to squeeze through the tightly locked door of
entry to the United States, where some of those in turn ended up at
Quaker-sponsored centers meant to help the refugees begin the long,
complicated processes of integration or, perhaps, even assimilation into
their adopted culture.

Except where noted, information in this section comes from Bentwich
(1956). Norman Bentwich served as Attorney General of the Mandate
Government in Eretz Israel from 1920 to 1931. From 1931 to 1951 he
taught as Professor of International Relations at the Hebrew
University of Jerusalem and from 1933 to 1936 acted as Director of the
League of Nations Commission for Jewish Refugees from Germany (Patkin,
1979. p 15).

Although records do not reveal if lessons were offered at the
settlementfor example in French or
agricultureor if other efforts
were made to assimilate the refugees, it is included here because 1)
the refugees mostly intended to settle in the area and 2) as shown by
their contact with locals, the refugees were willing to adapt at least
partially to the local culture.

This state of affairs continued until almost the end of the war
whenjust as the Germans were leaving
Francethe man was deported to
Germany and later Russia. Nothing was heard of him till some three
years later. According to the report from which this account is taken,
"after many efforts to secure his return, he was repatriated to
France in 1948 and went back to the school, which his wife had carried
on in his absence". Shortly afterwards the man became a Quaker
and in 1949 the donor transferred the property to him and his family.

The New Herrlingen School possessed its own mini-farm, with the
children mostly in charge of its "large garden and two
greenhouses with numerous frames, all with heating", five hundred
hens, some pigs and hives of bees. "The pigs were fed on kitchen
waste and [one group of pupils], who were entirely responsible for
them, ran an old motor-car on the proceeds from the sale of the
piglets" (Ibid., p. 627).

This is no random claim, but one backed by Major's research. In
October 1937, several inspectors from the government's Board of
Education visited the school for three days and filed a subsequent
report. Their comments are revealing, as they were "amazed at
what could be achieved in teaching with limited facilities and
convinced it was the personality, enthusiasm and interest of teachers
rather than their teaching "apparatus' that made the school work
competently". At the time of the inspection, 68 pupils attended
the school- 41 boys and 27 girls, with 65 being boarders and 12 being
English. From 1933 to 1937, 26 children left the school for other
countries- mostly the U.S. or Palestinebut for other schools in
Britain, too. The inspectors also noted "the considerable trouble
Anna went to so that those pupils wanting to do so could have further
training for a chosen career". By the school's closure pupils had
entered "a wide range of careers and during the war some had
joined the Services or did war work in Britain" (pp. 628-629).
Besides reviewing educational activities, the inspectors reported that
"the discipline being that of a large family rather than that of
an institution, the pupils go about the House freely and use as day
rooms not only the classrooms and library, but also the rooms of the
staff, including the Head Mistress's own sitting room" (p. 630).

According to Major, "this was seemingly a short-sighted and
needless act as none of the staff or pupils, having left Germany in
such unhappy circumstances, had the slightest allegiance to Nazi
Germany or would do anything against the interests of their new-found
home, England. Some of the staff and older boys were dispatched for
internment to Australia, where they were housed in camps for a time,
living in conditions little better than the Nazi concentration camps
they had avoided by leaving Germany, a fact that created a rightful
bitterness for years afterwards over such treatment. The schoolboys
from Bunce Court, however, were soon released on arrival in Australia
as they were below the age of 18. There was no government provision
for their return to England and some had extraordinary adventures
before arriving in the USA or joining the British army!" (p.
654).

In 1943 Essinger wrote: "I have been justified again and again
in my belief that the "human element' is much more important in
successful teaching than any amount of technical equipment. It has
been one of the great joys...to see how with the help of a good and
co-operative staff much has been made of little. While it was not
always easy to help uprooted children over their difficulties, the
knowledge that the School enabled them to grow up decently has
encouraged me to continue this work" (Unprinted book titled Bunce Court School, 1933-1943, p.14, found in London's
Weiner Library).

According to Brenda [Friedrich] Baileydaughter of important
figures in the German Yearly Meeting of Friends before, during and
after the Hitler regime"the idea had come from Herta Kraus, a
German Friend, who felt that people discharged from concentration
camps or who had suffered in other ways could be helped to regain
their strength and morale through a retreat with understanding English
and German Quaker hosts" (1994, p. 59).

See Sandvoί (1994, pp. 277-281) for a description of German Quaker
aid or resistance.

According to Howard, "one was...all the time conscious of
skating on very thin ice, and one never knew when one was being
watched, so that an incautious word, or a name too loudly spoken,
might bring all our work into danger, innocent though it was" (p.
49).

Howard noted: "Let it not be supposed that all our guests were
saints or heroes. We cast our net very wide and sometimes caught queer
fish! There was an endless call on the tact and understanding of each
House Mother, but it was all abundantly worthwhile" (p. 58).
Echoing a similar sentiment issued two years later at Scattergood, a
former Rest Home guest wrote to her in 1941, referring to that refuge
as an "island of kindness amid a storm of wickedness"
(p.48).

Howard explained that the Rest Home "was later
transferred...to a more accessible province of Germany, so that we
could lessen the need for very long and costly travel. We always paid
the fares for our guests where this was needful" (Ibid., p. 48).

An AFSC proposal held that "the project is intended to provide
a congenial atmosphere in which residents may find opportunities for
mutual exploration of American and German ways of thinking and livingresulting in a better understanding of each other's cultures".

Besides young Americans, the staff also included Katrin, mother of
Erhard Winter [both having been given pseudonyms upon request]; a
German social worker, she served as Aberdeen Camp's "chief
counsellor" and he sojourned at Scattergood Hostel.

As explained in an anonymous report, the variety of people greatly
enriched the camp: "The size of [the group] seemed satisfactory.
There were not too many to prevent close acquaintance being formed
with everyone, and yet it was large enough to offer each one
opportunity to find congenial companions and some variety of
acquaintance. The presence of children, of youths, and of mature men
and women seemed to contribute a wholesome family atmosphere
approximating that of a home. Boys and girls of the upper teenage not
only enjoyed each other's companionship, but were a source of
satisfaction and pleasure rather than of worry to their concerned
elders. The age variety as well as its size made the group feel that
they were members of large family rather than of an
institution" (Unprinted report titled "Suggestions").

An AFSC "Memorandum Concerning the German Refugee Project in
Cuba" (4.V.39 noted: "As of March 20, 1939, there were about
4,000 refugees in Cuba, of whom 600 were on relief. Naturally there is
a wide range of age and occupation. No refugees are allowed employment
except when self-employed in farming, trade, or industry. Very few
have been able to start such enterprises except boarding houses.
Practically all refugees are centered in a slum district in Havana due
in some measure to a housing shortage outside Havana. Deterioration of
morale is rapid and extremely serious".

Gulley related: "the U.S. Consul in Havana came to observe our
work and became quite interested and proved to be a good friend. These
refugees who expected to enter the U.S. had to take their turn as
their assigned number came up to the head of the list. However, there
was a rule to the effect that where there was a married couple signed
up with different numbers they were allowed to enter together if the
husband's number came up first but not if the wife's came up first. We
had just such a case. They, of course, were anxious to go. [The
Consul] got out the book of regulations and said, "I'll tell you
what the book says, now let's see how we can get around it.' He then
found that in certain "hardship' cases, the Consul was permitted
to use his judgment, and in this case he did so" (p. 77). One
couple who came to Cuba to await necessary documents to enter the U.S.
consisted of Otto and Rosa Bauer of Vienna. In their case they sought
re-entry, as they already had spent five months at Scattergood Hostel
(see p. 150-OHR).

According to Rosa Scheidera Czech woman who later became a
Scattergood Hostel resident"Families were not accepted, only
young men, who had to be retrained and given a home. But families were
always welcome guests and so the Finca Paso Seco became a beloved goal
for Sunday trips. I shall never forget these Meetings in the cool
shadow of the porch, with its view of the tropical park around the
building... After the Meeting we used to lie down under the palms
behind the building and enjoy a peaceful day" (Rosa Scheider,
"Cuban Experiences", SMNB, 17.XII.40 .

Signing his name as "Frank Rotter", three days after the
"music-evening" he penned a letter to "Mr. Society of
Friends of Philadelphia" in which he wanted to offer thanks
"for the founding of such a wonderful working-community. Until
now these people wandered about in the small streets of Habana,
without any definite goal and plan. Now, given the chance to work, it
is made possible for them to gain practical knowledge of many
business-branches. And hence this happens without any constraint, the
psychological result is unmeasurable. With joy and devotion they take
part in every thing; how they enjoy when the plants set by themselves
grow up in the field ploughed by themselves, how they enjoy joining in
building usefull [sic] things in the carpenter-shop, how happy we
were, when the car completely rebuilt by ourselves was running.
Everyone gets to know the sense of duty, and the working together in
community. He gets acquainted with the soul, thoughts and the idea of
Quakerism. If I were to say everything concerning the already
noticeable influence upon the souls of the people living here, my
report would fill up too much space [as] we all who have the luck to
be here, have the firm believe [sic], based upon the influence of the
Finca-life, that we, in our new homeland, living in a new social
order, shall become good, real and efficacious American citizen [sic].
I express my very deep thanks" (Franz Rotter, Open Letter,
6.XI.39).

In the first days of Finca Paso Seco's existence, the community
"enjoyed frequent calls from the police [who were] all afraid we
were hiding refugees or starting a little counter-revolution. Laborers
had to be drafted as interpreters to explain how harmless [the
refugees] were, and every last man had to go to the county seat to
report in person before all fears were allayed!" (Eleanor Slater,
Unpublished Essay entitled "The Quaker Star in Cuba",
5.IX.39 .

Gulley later lamented: "Our year in Cuba passed all too
quickly, for we were extremely busy. Supervising the program on our
refugee farm, [nurturing] contacts with the U.S. Consulate to help
clear up troubled cases, dealing with Cuban officials [or] business
men, supplying food for our group, meeting visitors and many other
things kept us on the go" (p. 78).